“The turtles saved both of us,” Dax said.
“I had to be fished out of the water like a… like a… like a fish!” Ree wailed. “The turtles didn’t want me. I was sinking, when Perri came and he… he had to eat me to save me!”
Startled, Marin glanced out at Perri, who had retreated to deeper water but lingered, watching his crew reunited. “He what?”
“He put me in his mouth,” Ree said. “It was the only way to keep me safe. He put me in his mouth and dove down under the waves, away from the storm, until it passed. Only when it was safe did he open his mouth again and let me climb out. And then you were gone. No boat. No captain. No Dax.”
“How did you find us?” Dax asked.
“I didn’t,” Ree said. “Perri did. I guess he talked to the turtles? Can serpents talk to turtles? Or he could have just followed them. I don’t know. I… Captain, I’m not worthy to be a sailor.”
Marin knelt in the sand next to him. “Why do you say that?”
“I wasn’t brave,” he said miserably.
“It’s okay that you were scared,” Marin told him. “It was objectively terrifying. I was terrified the entire time.” She patted the tops of his branches and wondered if he’d want a hug. Or fresh soil.
“It’s not okay.”
“If you hadn’t been scared, then I’d say you aren’t a sailor. Sailors have to respect the sea and fear the storms. Fearless sailors drown.” Also unlucky ones. She’d been lucky—lucky that she’d had a crew. If Dax hadn’t untied her… If Perri hadn’t called the turtles… She was certain he’d done that.It’s not luck that saved us. We saved one another.She looked again at Dax. She couldn’t seem to stop looking at him.
“You kept sailing,” Ree said. “All I could do was scream.”
“And survive,” Marin said. “You did that too, and that’s not a small thing. Ree, sometimes things happen that are out of our control… Sometimes just surviving is heroic enough.” She stood up. “Let’s find you some new soil, okay?”
He was silent for a moment and then said in a small voice, “Okay.”
“Okay,” Marin said warmly. “Come on, sailor.” She headed away from shore toward the silver and crystal trees.
Hopping behind her, Ree said, “Thank you, Captain.”
All of them were soaked through, which was a problem—well, Perri’s fine, but Dax and I need a fire. And Ree needs fresh soil.
If she had her boat, she’d have access to the stove and blankets and fresh clothes. But she didn’t know where her beloved sailboat had been flung, or if it was even in one piece. For all she knew, it was at the bottom of the ocean.No, it can’t be.She refused to think like that. They’d survived, so her boat could have too. It was a lot more buoyant than two people and a plant.
“Perri, what aboutSilver?” Marin called across the water. “Do you know what happened to my sailboat?”
He didn’t. But he’d search—Perri slapped the water with his fins to show emphasis. He’d findSilver, wherever she was.
“Thank you!” She pressed her hands to her heart and hoped he understood how much it meant to her: that he’d saved Ree, that he’d found them, that he stayed with her when he could have abandoned her at any time to find his own kind.I don’t deserve such a friend.
She watched him swim toward deeper waters and then submerge. She didn’t know if it was an impossible task or not. Her boat, her future, could be lost forever, torn apart by the sea.
“At least it’s not cold,” Dax said beside her, so close that she could feel him even though they weren’t touching. She wondered if she was always going to be aware of how close he was now. She was conscious of the feel of his voice on her skin, the warmth of—
Wait, why wasn’t it cold? Given the season, it shouldn’t be this balmy, unless they’d been knocked off course by a tremendous amount.I can’t worry about that yet. First, avoiding hypothermia.She studied the trees and wondered if their crystalline branches would burn like wood or fail to burn like crystal. “The temperature could dip after the sun sets. We’ll need to be dry by then.”
Both of them looked at the sun, which was halfway between the horizon and the zenith. She wasn’t sure if that meant it was midmorning or midafternoon.
“Any idea if that’s east or west?” Marin asked.
“Nope,” Dax said. “Do you know how to start a fire?”
“Actually, yes, I have a few basic emergency supplies,” Marin said. She patted her emergency pocket, the one every supply runner had. It included a fire-starter (a piece of metal that you could hit with a rock to reliably create a spark), a strainer spelled to purify water (small but effective), a heavy-duty needle (for mending sails), and a knife (for whatever). She held her hand up to the horizon—the sun was four fingers width above it.
“What are you doing?” Ree asked.
“If I measure it again in an hour, we’ll know whether it’s rising or sinking. And then we’ll know whether that’s east or west.”
